We call it extortion. It’s a crime. A
felony. Using the threat of criminal prosecution to achieve financial gain.
Even if someone actually owes you money, telling them that if they do not pay
you, you will notify the authorities and charge them with a crime. But in
Trump’s America, there is a hidden message: if you are an undocumented worker,
if ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) finds out, you will charged with
a crime and set for deportation.
Just being in the United States
without more is not, however, a crime. In the 2012 Supreme Court case, United States vs. Arizona, the majority
wrote that “as a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to
remain present in the United States.” The remedy is civil: deportation. Like
getting a parking ticket with a harsher result. But it is a crime to have
entered the United States illegally (e.g., sneaking across the border is
criminal versus over-staying a visa, which is not). A misdemeanor that becomes
a felony if you re-enter after having been previously lawfully deported. So jail
(misdemeanor) or prison (felony) are possible results for those who have
crossed the border illegally… plus, of course, deportation.
However, an undocumented alien who works in the United States may be
committing one or more separate crimes. For example, it is a crime to fill out an employment
eligibility form to get a job when they aren’t eligible to work. There are
other potential crimes associated with such work.
Sometimes undocumented workers violate state
and federal law by earning money and failing to file tax returns. They may not
know, for example, that: “To
work in the United States, immigrants who are here illegally often use false
social security numbers or ones that belong to other people. Then many
file their income tax returns using a special number provided by the IRS.
Those immigrants can file their taxes without fear of deportation as the IRS
doesn’t report their illegal status to Homeland Security…
“Regardless of citizenship status, the IRS requires everyone earning
income in the United States to report it. There’s even a process for immigrants
using fake social security numbers.” TPR.Org (Texas Public Radio), 4/17/15. But
there is another side to undocumented labor.
Employers are generally required to ascertain
the immigration status of workers they hire. It is also a federal crime for an
employer to hire an undocumented worker, even if that worker is being supplied
by an outside labor contractor (if the employer had reason to believe that the
workers supplied were undocumented). Title
8 of the United States Code, Chapter 12, Subchapter II, Part VIII, § 1324a.
Ah, but those damned undocumented aliens are a
hotbed of criminals, at least if you listen to Donald Trump and his MAGA
followers. “According to analysis
of the 2010 census and the American Communities Survey done by the non-profit
American
Immigration Council, immigrants to the United States are significantly less
likely than native-born citizens to be incarcerated. The authors found that 1.6
percent of immigrant males age 18-39 are incarcerated, compared to 3.3 percent
of the native-born…
“The
divide was even sharper when the authors examined the incarceration rate among
immigrant men the authors believe likely to be undocumented — specifically
less-educated men from El Salvador and Guatemala between age 18-29. According
to AIC senior researcher Walter Ewing, there are very few ways for men in this
demographic to emigrate legally. According to the analysis, these likely
undocumented immigrants had an incarceration rate of 1.7 percent, compared with
10.7 percent for native-born men without a high school diploma.” CBSNews.com, 1/27/17.
There’s no
question that drug cartels traffic across our borders and that members of those
cartels and related gangs are among the undocumented entering the United States
illegally. It is equally true that criminals already here in the United States,
most native born, are an even bigger part of that illicit trade. Most
undocumented workers came here to escape violence or to find an economic path
to support their families. The above chart, published in the June 18th
Washington Post, focuses on one of the states, Texas, with one of the largest
populations of undocumented workers. The information was based on research
conducted by the libertarian Cato Institute. The results track similar studies
in other states where there are large numbers of immigrants, legal and
undocumented.
While people with H-2A temporary visas are
treated reasonably well, the Trump administration’s attitude has left too many
of those without legal work status in semi-slavery. Some are underpaid or
simply not paid at all or late or less than the agreed wage and often way below
the applicable minimum wage. The are often housed in horrific conditions and
fed barely palatable food. But when an employer who should never have hired a
worker in the first place the above 8 USC 1324a, turns in an undocumented alien
worker, the arresting officer usually turns a blind eye to the employer’s
violation. That “blind eye” is flatly unlawful too.
But an administration that labels desperate
men, women and children fleeing violence, hunger and poverty as a “invading
horde of criminals and terrorists,” as children are separated from their
parents as they are caught at the border, while children in ICE custody die
from improper medical care and as those brought to the United States as little
children who have grown up knowing no other country than the United States are
threatened with deportation… seems to encourage employer and landlord extortion
of undocumented aliens. The Judeo-Christian notion of kindness and charity –
basic human empathy present in all the great religions of the world – seems to
have left not only the building but the entire nation.
While it is illegal for landlords to raise
rents and provide code-violating housing contrary to local statutes, an undocumented
tenant is often threatened with deportation if they file a claim with the local
authorities. Extortion again. It can equally nasty in the workplace. Employers
often take risks vis-Ã -vis pay and working conditions with their undocumented
labor… because they can. Here is an excerpt from the January 1st Los
Angeles Times presenting an exceptionally common practice right here in liberal
California:
“The hours would be long, the sun
blazing, the food terrible — Oscar Ivan Contreras knew what to expect as the
bus rumbled toward the United States… He’d been on this bus before, bound for
California and a season’s work picking blueberries. It was partly math that
pulled him back now: Six hours’ pay as a legal, temporary worker for Munger
Bros., North America’s largest blueberry grower, equals a week’s wages back
home in the Mexican state of Nayarit.
“But almost as soon as he and some
600 other Mexican guest workers arrived in California’s Central Valley, he
realized something was very different from the year before. It was spring 2017,
and America had changed.
“Munger’s managers were surlier, he
says, and more demanding. On many days, workers got no lunch until 3 p.m. — and
when the food came, it was often rotten or there wasn’t enough, Contreras says.
Munger failed to supply sufficient drinking water or toilets at one of its
facilities, resulting in a $6,000 fine from the state. Workers say they were
compelled to work even when sick or injured. Ultimately, the company fired
dozens of them when they walked off the job for a day after one man collapsed
in the fields.
“Throughout, those who complained
heard a new refrain from Munger supervisors, tuned to the era of President
Trump’s strict immigration policies: ‘Go back to Mexico.’ This response to
every gripe ‘was a way to remind the worker the company has the power to fire
them and send them home,’ according to a court affidavit by Sierra Giovanna,
who managed Munger’s guest worker program before she was fired in August 2017.
The affidavit was filed in a federal lawsuit in which workers accuse Delano,
Calif.-based Munger of labor trafficking.
“Munger’s treatment of its guest
workers in 2017 has drawn fines from regulators in California and Washington
state, and a federal investigation by the Labor Department. The company
declined to answer questions for this article, but said after the workers sued
last January that it intended to ‘vigorously fight’ their claims. ‘All
employees are treated well and are paid well,’ it said.
“In court filings, Munger denies
wrongdoing, claims the guest workers’ production was ‘exceedingly low,’ and
says that it provided enough food but that some of the laborers in 2017 were
picky eaters… Between the blueberry harvests of 2016 and 2017, something did
change in America. In Trump’s first year as president, arrests of immigrants
suspected of being in the country illegally jumped 41%, stoking fear of
deportation in immigrant communities.
“Such arrests accelerated further in
2018, increasing 55% over 2016. Other administration policies have eroded
protections against labor trafficking — that is, compelling people to work
through force, fraud or coercion — according to immigration lawyers.
“In short, worker advocates say,
Trump’s immigration crackdown has become the nasty boss’ best friend. Terrified
of ‘la migra,’ more workers are putting up with unpaid wages, untreated
injuries and various forms of abuse, says David Weil, who was director of the
U.S. Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division under President Obama.”
Undocumented workers have rights, but most hold their tongues for fear of
deportation.
For those undocumented workers
suffering from heat stroke, severe allergic reactions or even injuries in the
field, if there is any medical treatment at all, it is often substandard or
perhaps even charged to the worker directly. “Workers say their bosses had
little sympathy for such ailments. ‘You came here to suffer, not for vacation,’
a supervisor named Jessica told the workers, according to sworn affidavits
filed in the labor-trafficking lawsuit. One hotel for the workers was riddled
with bedbugs, says Giovanna, the former Munger labor manager.” LA Times.
This is Trump’s America. Harsh
treatment for desperate people is powerfully supported by the substantial
evangelical component of Trump’s base. Perhaps they have not read the New
Testament… or if they have, they clearly did not understand it.
I’m Peter Dekom, and wouldn’t it be nice if
the majority of Americans would invite empathy back into a nation built by
immigrants?
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